A Picture Worth 37,000,000 Words

President Obama signs the healthcare bill into law, giving 37,000,000 uninsured Americans access to health insurance.

Making our lives better. Making a difference. Making history.

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Political Football

"Pelosi takes the snap and hands off to Reid...he's looking for the hole..."

Politics, like football, seems to be a game of inches. It takes a team of people working under enormous pressure, against an equally enormous foe, to move their agenda forward towards the goal. Every inch in that direction is a test of will, determination, and strength. Pride, ego, validation, and ultimately money are on the line. Every inch forward is vital because progress for one side is regression to the other. Glory goes to those who win, because the fight is hard. People get injured along the way. Inch, by tormented inch.

But football, unlike politics, is an honest game. Put aside gambling, cheating, and Terrell Owens crying about Tony Romo for a moment, and consider this: when two football teams step onto the field they are both trying to beat hell out of each other. The Bears hate the Packers. The Jets hate the Patriots. Everyone hates the Raiders. The mission is clear: our team must win.

In politics we get this phony attempt at bi-partisanship, which is just a ploy to make the American public feel good about ourselves. Voters pull the lever for the politician that supports the issues that are important to that him or her. And I am sure “kumbaya” is not on anyone’s top-10 list of most important issues right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for a happy nation where everyone is getting theirs. I would like all Americans to be able to agree on some basic things like guns, abortion, human rights, and never letting Tom Delay dance in public again. But that’s not what America is all about. America is really all about football.

Why not just ram the ball through the opposition's weak defensive front?

In the Healthcare Reform Legislation Bowl the Democrats are the home team. They have the crowd mostly behind them. They have a great quarterback (Obama) who knows how to move the ball. Their offense (House of Representatives) is superior, but their defense (Senate) is pretty evenly matched against the GOP because of some weak spots in the lineup (Lieberman, Nelson, Conrad).

The Republicans are the underdogs in this game. They don’t have the numbers in the House to lineup against the Democrats, but they can score points off their own offense in the Senate by overpowering the Democrats’ porous secondary. In football this would be called the Blue Dog Offensive Scheme.

The Democrats are playing this too conservatively. Rather than playing to avoid mistakes or fumbles, they should just take the ball and play smash-mouth. Break through the GOP’s weak defense against a public option, and outrun them to the end zone.

In other words Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and her housemates have put out a bill on healthcare reform. The bill is now in your hands. If the Bluedogs like Lieberman, Nelson, and Conrad are gonna let the GOP run all over you in the Senate then use the power of cloture–you have the numbers for that. Get your team together on a bill that delivers what ALL DEMOCRATS said they’d do before the 2008 election, ram it through and do what you gotta do to get it on the President’s desk for a signature. If it upsets the GOP and their supporters, I can assure you that the voters will let you know if that’s a problem or not. 2010 is around the corner, and the voters will all have something to say on election day. Win this game now and you might just dominate for a long time. Losing it means losing many Democratic voters, your job, and likely losing control of the congress in a year.

Democrats were elected to run this country right now, and I want the agenda I voted for. NO COMPROMISES! Democrats, if you get an inch in this debate, turn it into a 55-yard kick return and take it all the way to the house–The White House.